University of Hertfordshire – Robot-assisted play therapy for autistic children

Both parents and teachers agree: Eden has certainly opened up since she met her new friend.

It’s 2011, and the four-year-old is growing up with autism. In the past, she would shy away from contact, and shrink when other girls held her hand.

“Affection always used to be on her terms”, said her mother Claire. “If you didn’t say, ‘Can I have a hug?’ and you just went and hugged her, then you might have got scratched or something. You always had to pre-warn her, whereas now it’s much more spontaneous.”

KASPAR is an unusual-looking friend, a simplified face without wrinkles or crinkles, tucked under a mop of wavy hair and a baseball cap. And it’s true: KASPAR isn’t like other children.

He’s a robot, built by researchers at the University of Hertfordshire.

KASPAR

Some adults consider KASPAR a little creepy. He can blink, move his mouth, and gesture with his neck and arms, but his rubbery face lacks the intricate detail of a human face. It is precisely this simplicity that makes him so attractive to children with autism.

“Interacting with other people can be very challenging and frightening for autistic children”, says Hertfordshire’s Dr Kerstin Dautenhahn.

“The range of expressions can be very overwhelming and difficult to process. KASPAR has a very plain face, which is similar to a human face but simplified. By playing with KASPAR, children can spend time learning about human faces, and getting more used to human interaction.”

KASPAR was born in 2005, a minimally-expressive robot prototype developed in just three months. However, the university’s work stretches back to the late 1990s, when Dr Dautenhahn founded an umbrella project called Aurora to investigate how robotics could help with autism therapy. Her work was conducted alongside co-investigator Dr Ben Robins.

“When I started this work, I had many years of experience in social robotics. Autism started as a personal interest”, she said. “When I did some research, I learned that many people with autism were much happier interacting with computers, as they found them safe and predictable compared to human beings.

“I started forming this idea. What if children were able to use a robot to practice social interaction and communication? Robots can be simplified, and can therefore be less stressful and easy to understand. We wanted to show them that social interaction didn’t have to be frightening.”

Once KASPAR was ready, the research group took him into schools, such as the TRACKS autism early years centre in Stevenage.

KASPAR is operated by a teacher or child using a remote control keypad. He is able to play a number of games that help children to explore human faces and interaction. In one game, KASPAR makes a gesture that the child has to mimic, such as putting his hands over his eyes or opening his arms wide.

Autistic children also struggle to determine how to touch others appropriately, often hurting other children by shoving them or pinching their nose. KASPAR reacts happily when he is touched in a friendly way, and shies away obviously when he is “hurt”.

While KASPAR doesn’t learn new behaviours himself, he can be adapted to play games that are tailored to a child’s particular needs. Following suggestions from teachers, KASPAR was programmed to lead the children in song, with tunes like “If You’re Happy and You Know It”.

“You see them a little while later, loudly and enthusiastically singing the song and touching their nose. They’re so happy”, said Dr Dautenhahn.

“If you’re a parent of a child with autism, one of the sad things is that it can be very difficult to play. If you can’t play with your child, it can be very frustrating and upsetting. Can this robot help an autistic child to become closer to their family?”

The research group conducted long-term studies with 80 children between 2009 and the present day, and many parents reported that their children have noticeably softened after spending time with KASPAR.

The work done at the University of Hertfordshire also inspired former doctoral student Tamie Salter to set up her own company offering robotic devices for autistic children. Canada-based Que Innovations is currently trialing the QueBall, a ball-shaped robot which rolls around and reacts to the touch. It is designed for children on the lower-functioning end of the autism spectrum.

Other researchers have noted KASPAR’s effect on children. At the University of Roehampton, Paul Dickerson’s team undertakes conversation analysis to determine how people interact with each other. A study of autistic children who had interacted frequently with KASPAR uncovered some heartening results.

“If you analyse the interactions in detail, you can find instances in which children with autism display behaviour they’re not meant to have”, said Dr Dautenhahn.

“For example, children with autism are meant to be very bad with ‘joint attention’, the ability to have a common focus with someone on another object. But we have seen examples of children doing just that.

“Rather than focusing on what children with autism can’t do – which is well documented – if you let them interact with a robot like KASPAR, you might see surprising things happening. We’re trying to focus on the abilities of children, not the disabilities.”

It has certainly proved beneficial for children such as Ronnie.

His mother Sheena said: “Before, he was always bashing the other children around. It’s calmed him down a hell of a lot. I’d love to have KASPAR at home.”

That dream may not be far off. In August 2012, a two-and-a-half year project began to re-design KASPAR for use by non-researchers, and robots with new hardware will be tested in schools and even houses. The aim is to enable some families to welcome KASPAR into their own homes.

Dr Dautenhahn said: “We’re still in the process of working out how this could happen, but we want to make KASPAR more widely available.

“Some people might be able to buy one, while others might rent one from certain suppliers. KASPAR may not be as expensive as some of those wonderful robots we see in the news, but we know that some families in need might not be able to afford him.

“We’d like to see as many children as possible benefit from KASPAR. We don’t want to see him become an expensive luxury object that only a few people can afford.”

Links to Additional Information

Both parents and teachers agree: Eden has certainly opened up since she met her new friend.
It’s 2011, and the four-year-old is growing up with autism. In the past, she would shy away from contact, and shrink when other girls held her hand.
“Affection always used to be on her terms”,...

About

There were 280 impact case studies submitted to the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) sub panel 11 Computer Science and Informatics by Eighty Seven institutions. Over 80% of the case studies had some form of economic impact, including spin-out businesses created by universities, software tools and techniques developed by research projects which have benefited the efficiency of both computing practitioners in large and small organisations, as well as standard security and communication protocols in daily use by millions of users. The annual revenue generated from those spinouts which included figures in the case studies, was in excess of £170 million and they had nearly 1900 employees. The additional sales revenues attributed to the academic research in industries such as aerospace, telecommunications, computing and energy was about £400 million. Some of the impact has been in the form of public policy, for example in terms of identifying security risks, informing healthcare decisions or public debate on ethical issues. There has been considerable social impact in terms of new healthcare procedures and treatments as well as aids for disabled or elderly people.

The following figure indicates the main types of impact in the submitted case studies listed in the Appendix.

The sub-panel assessors, which included eight people from industry and government appointed only to assess impact, recommended about fifty case studies as being potentially suitable for publicising UK academic Computer Science impact.These were not the fifty highest scoring case studies but were selected based on potential interest to the general public.An initial set of twenty case studies was selected from these to be written up in a form to make them more accessible to non-technical people. The selection criteria included ease of understanding of the technology underpinning the impact, potential interest by the public,examples from a wide range of different types of impact – both social and economic and showing that excellent impact can be generated from a range of universities with both large and small submissions to REF including post-92 universities, Russell Group and the other universities.

The 2014 REF was the first formal assessment of impact as part of the overall research assessment of UK academic institutions.The sub-panel assessors were very impressed by the extent to which UK academic research has had social and economic impact within the UK and often world-wide.The range of impact case studies included:

Spin-out companies from universities, some of which had then been taken over by large international companies.

Software tools and techniques either made available open-source or sometimes licensed to particular organisations with impact in automotive, aerospace, energy suppliers, media, gaming, healthcare, pharmaceutical, transport, retail as well as computing industry.

Contributions to many different international standards e.g. telecommunication, web, compilers, security.

Impact on government, healthcare and security policy as well as on public awareness about ethical and social issues.

The REF criteria stated that the research underpinning the impact must have taken place during the period 1 January 1993 to 31 December 2013 and be of a quality that is recognised internationally in terms of originality, significance and rigour (i.e. at least 2* quality, in terms of REF scoring), but the actual impact must have taken place during the period 1 January 2008 to 31 July 2013.The underpinning research described in case studies ranged from development of specific protocols, to formal methods used to reason about software design or to machine learning techniques.The underpinning research was often of the highest quality with publications in top conferences and journals.

The twenty case studies selected for this report were picked to reflect the range of those submitted and include spin out companies, software tools and techniques, commercialisation of open source software as well as a number of healthcare related applications and aids for people with disabilities. Some case studies indicate impact influencing public policy including issues relating to electronic payments, autonomous weapons systems and evaluation of health information systems.

The working group managing the report included Jon Crowcroft, David Duce, Ursula Martin, David Robertson and Morris Sloman.John Hill wrote the impact case study texts, in consultation with the relevant academics, and Naomi Atkinson was responsible for the design layout of the report.